The envoy's eyes went wide. He was a young man, and hadn't mastered the art of keeping his mind from showing on his face. Utah, the Khai Machi, waved away his own words and sighed. He had gone too far, and he knew it. Another few steps and they'd he pointing at each other and yelling about which of them wanted to create the 'T'hird Enr pire. The truth was that he had ruled hlachi these last fourteen years only by necessity. The prospect of uniting the cities of the Khaiem under his rule was about as enticing as scraping his skin off with a rock.

The audience was a private one, in a small room lined with richly carved hlackwood, lit by candles that smelled like rich earth and vanilla, and set well away from the corridors and open gardens where servants and members of the utkhaiem might unintentionally overhear them. This wasn't business he cared to have shared over the dances and dinners of the court. Otah rose from his chair and walked to the window, forcing his temper back down. He opened the shutters, and the city stretched out before him, grand towers of stone stretching up toward the sky, and beyond them the wide plain to the south, green with the first crops of the spring. He pressed his frustration back into yoke.

"I didn't mean that," he said. "I know that the Dai-kvo doesn't intend to dictate to me. Or any of the Khaiem. I appreciate your concern, but the creation of the guard isn't a threat. It's hardly an army, you know. A few hundred men trained up to maybe half the level of a Westlands garrison could hardly topple the world."

"We are concerned for the stability of all the cities," the envoy said. "When one of the Khaiem begins to study war, it puts all the others on edge."

"It's hardly studying war to hand a few men knives and remind them which end's the handle."

"It's more than any of the Khaiem have done in the past hundred years. And you must see that you haven't made it your policy to ally yourself with… well, with anyone."